tedwords

Behold! The sneakers from the depths of hell!

They belong to one of our neighbors on the third floor. Young couple. Fairly quiet. Nice enough. Except for his sneakers.

He leaves them outside the door most days during the week, and one whiff as you enter the apartment building makes it abundantly clear why.

No, I'm serious, man. These things reek worse than the arguments that the New York High Court had for upholding the gay-marriage ban. They smell worse the accumulated foot odor of the couples at the end of an episode of "So You Think You Can Dance?"

I used to have a pair of sneakers I would wear to work at a convenience story. Every night, I'd have to refill the milk shelves, and would sometimes have to walk through puddles of spilled milk. These sneakers smell worse than the ground in curdled milk smell that my sneakers had on Friday nights.

I understand why his girlfriend insists that he leave them outside the apartment. But what about those of us who have to walk up the stairs to get home? Jesus, some people return home to the smell of baked cookies or fresh cut roses...I get the dulcet downwind scents of the Courtney Love canal.

Corb did try to help. The other night he crept down the hall and covered the sneakers in Febreze. And it did help, a bit. Now they smell like horribly stinky sneakers covered over by a few spritzes of "Summer and splash." Just add some stinky mouth plaque and my hell would be complete...

Is there nothing I can do? Should I steal them and throw them in the trash bin? Should I blow them up? Should I leave a little note on them ("Blow me down! These things should be registered as a dangerous weapon!")?

Or should I simply think of them as just another bit of color in the sleepy town of Eldredge...more on this later, maybe...